


I Want to Believe

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), The X-Files
Genre: Friendship, Gen, it was inevitable, this fic had to exist okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:04:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jamie was the first child to believe in him as Jack Frost, but he wasn’t the first child to see him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Want to Believe

**Author's Note:**

> Because older brother and younger sister relationships are apparently meant to be fraught with pain.

Jamie was the first child to believe in him as Jack Frost, but he wasn’t the first child to see him. There had always been a few, now and then, who would see him, a boy where he shouldn’t be, flying through the air or running barefoot through the snow. Sometimes they thought he was a ghost—sometimes they were afraid, and that was an even worse feeling than being accidentally walked through. None of them had tried to talk to him.

            One winter though, all that changed. 1971, if Jack remembers correctly. Jack had been spending some time in the northeast of the United States, and on this particular day he was visiting Martha’s Vineyard. As he flies over the houses, he notices a brother and a sister playing in the snow. For some reason, scenes like this always draw him in. He wonders if it has something to do with why the Man in the Moon put him here, but he knows from long experience that wondering like that leads nowhere. It would be more fun to make sure that these kids have a perfect day of playing in the snow.

            He makes the snow already on the ground fluffy for when the girl falls down to make a snow angel, sends a little puff of wind to help her get up without stepping on it, and when the boy calls out, “Samantha, help me build a snowman!” he changes the texture of the snow again to make it suitable for packing and rolling. All is going well from his vantage point on the roof, when suddenly the boy looks up—straight at him.

            “There’s someone on our roof! Look!” the boy points excitedly at Jack. Now would be his normal cue to leave, but the boy doesn’t seem frightened and it’s been a long time since anyone saw him.

            “Where?” asks Samantha.

            “Right there! He’s got white hair, and a blue shirt—”

            “Fox, I don’t see anything!”

            “But he’s right there!”

            “You’re being weird again. I’m going inside for hot chocolate.”

            Despite his sister’s inability to see him, her denial that Jack is there, the boy—Fox, what kind of a name is Fox?—still seems like he’s looking at Jack. He decides to see how long this will last, and flies down from the roof and lands so that he’s only about ten feet away from the boy.

            “Hi, kid,” he says. “Fox, is it?”

            The boy nods. “Who are you? Are you a ghost? How can you fly?”

            “I’m—” and here is the problem. Jack can’t say his own name to those who don’t believe in him. He’s not sure, but he thinks they have to say it first. “I’m just a fun-loving guy. You like playing in the snow, yeah? I help to make that better. I’m not a ghost, and the wind helps me fly.”

            “Wow.” Fox’s eyes are wide with wonder, and he’s starting to grin. “I never knew there were people like you out there. This is amazing! Can we be friends?”

            If he was the type to cry, Jack would have cried then. But he’s not. Instead, he laughs, relief mixed with joy. “Sure thing, kid. I can only stay for the winter, though.”

            “But you’ll come back next winter! And the one after that! This is going to be awesome! Can you take me flying? Can you make snow days? We should go sledding! You would keep the snow fresh for every trip down, wouldn’t you?”

            “Anything for you, kid,” Jack says, airborne again with happiness.

 

            Their friendship lasts the winter, but when spring comes Jack has to leave for cooler climes.

            “You’ll come back, won’t you?” Fox asks anxiously, leaning on his windowsill and looking out to where Jack hovers in the almost-too-warm air. “And I’ll get Samantha to understand that you aren’t imaginary.”

            “I promise, Fox. I’ll be back.”

 

            And he does come back, and if winter lasts just a little longer that year for the Mulders, Fox isn’t complaining, though Samantha never does manage to see him. “Maybe next year,” Fox says. “Can you tell me about the yetis again?”

 

            It’s early December, 1973, when Jack returns to Fox again. When he taps on the window, the boy startles, sitting straight up in bed, looking terrified. When he finally realizes it’s just Jack, the fear drains from his face, but it’s not replaced with anything more but a weak smile, which soon gives way to sorrow. “What’s wrong?” Jack asks, as soon as Fox lets him inside.

            “S-Samantha.” The boy’s voice is quiet, as if he doesn’t want to hear what he’s saying. “She’s never going to see you now. It’s not even been a week. She was—she was _taken_. By aliens. I should have saved her but I _couldn’t_. No one believes me. But she’s gone, and I need to get her back, and I don’t know _how_.”

            Jack’s never seen an alien that he knows of, but he doesn’t tell Fox that. All he wants to do now is embrace the boy, let him cry into his shoulder if he needs to. But he can’t. During the first winter, Fox had tried to take his hand to pull him somewhere, and it had passed through, like all the others. So that was that. He couldn’t touch or be touched except as Jack Frost, and that’s not who he was to Fox.

            So now, he sits next to Fox on the side of his bed, hoping to offer some comfort just by his presence. “I’ll keep an eye out for her, Fox. I go all over the world. If I see her anywhere, I’ll come and tell you. Even in the middle of July.”

            Fox rubs his pajama sleeve over his eyes. “You’re the best friend anybody ever had.”

            “I don’t know about that,” says Jack. “But you’re the best friend I ever had. I’ll always be looking out for you, you know? Even if you don’t see me.” Jack knows that Fox is already twelve, and probably won’t be able to see him for much longer. If it takes more than a year or two to find his sister, he’s going to have to get creative with communication. But that’s all right. He’d do anything for this boy, who’s let him be seen, feel real, for even a short time.

            “How could I not see you?” Fox sounds puzzled. “You’re real.”

            “Things change,” Jack says. “But we don’t have to think about that now. Do you think you could tell me about who you saw taking your sister? So I have something to go on when I start looking.”

            Fox nods. “They say I can’t remember right because I was so scared…”

            “I’m not ‘they’. You can talk to me. Remember, I’m pretty unbelievable myself. Tell me what you saw.”

 

            The next year, it’s nearly spring in North America when Jack realizes he hasn’t been to see Fox. It cuts him to the heart, but he knows he must not have been drawn to him because he’s not strictly a child anymore. Fox must have let him go. But he has to check on him, to make sure he’s all right. But he doesn’t tap on the window. He knows how this story goes.

 

            Years pass, and Fox grows into a young man. He doesn’t really recover from losing his sister, and Jack could swear that even in his twenties, when he joins the FBI, that he’s looking for Jack when the weather grows cold. It makes him a little uneasy. He wants to be seen, would love to be seen by his old friend, but it shouldn’t be possible. He begins to make sure that he’s out of sight when checking on Fox—but he slips up once, and the wind carries a name from his lips to Jack’s ears: “Cool Kid?” And that’s what Fox had called him when a name was needed, but he couldn’t have seen him—he couldn’t still believe.

            But Jack hears gossip. Apparently Fox believes in all kinds of things, these days. They call him “Spooky”. But could Jack reappear to him, only to say that he hasn’t seen any sign of Samantha? He’s seen plenty of strange things, but not the girl. It wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be fair. Jack knows he’s not supposed to be part of the adult world, and he can’t break into it just to give Fox no news. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be selfish.

 

            But he doesn’t forget his promise to look out for him, and, yes, those he loves. When Fox finally gains another friend, Jack will be damned if he’s going to let anything happen to either of them.

            Still, he’s sort of relieved that it’s Dana that gets taken to the Antarctic. It’s easier for him to help Fox find her, since he’s always more willing to see—not him directly, of course—that still doesn’t seem quite right—but the patterns he makes. The way certain conditions are a little more survivable to Fox than they would be to others. It makes him smile when they save her against all odds, and when he learns that there are some terrible things that can be prevented by keeping other things cold—well. _I can do that_ , he thinks.

            And so he does.  Underneath everything else about him, he likes protecting others, though he didn’t know why then. Now he does. He was a Guardian then, and a Guardian now, and he knows that as the years pass, in some way he’ll always be doing what he does for the sake of a boy who was so eager to believe, reminded him he was real, and couldn’t be a guardian when it most counted. 

**Author's Note:**

> I have so much else to doooo--forgive me for this piece of randomness.
> 
> There was so much danger of this spiraling out of control and getting really complicated with Pitch and the Black Oil--anybody want to adopt a plot bunny?


End file.
